iPhone OS still dominates mobile web; Android on the way up

There has been huge growth locally and steady growth globally for the Android …

The latest Mobile Metrics Report from mobile advertising firm AdMob confirms what we've been seeing over the last year or so: the smartphone market largely belongs to Apple and Google from a platform perspective. It also reveals that "feature" phones have capitulated to smartphones for mobile ad requests, reflecting the growth of smartphones as they slowly begin a march toward dominating the overall mobile market. However, non-phone mobile Internet devices, like the forthcoming iPad, are beginning to be an increasingly important part of the mobile landscape.

According to AdMob's data, smartphone traffic grew 193 percent over the last 12 months, accounting for half the traffic on its network. Feature phones—what most of us think of as a "regular cell phone"—increased traffic 31 percent in the same time frame, but dropped down from 58 to 35 percent of traffic overall. Traffic from mobile Internet devices, including handheld game consoles, e-readers, and other similar Internet-capable devices, grew a whopping 403 percent, and now accounts for 17 percent of the traffic overall.

Looking at relative smartphone platform traffic in the US, the iPhone has dropped several points from its 55 percent last fall, but still holds nearly half the share. Android in particular has seen huge growth, nearly catching up with the iPhone's share over the last several months as a number of Android-based devices have been released on the market. The Motorola Droid has been especially helpful in this drive, along with a number of HTC devices. RIM has slowly declined, while webOS and Windows Mobile continue to stagnate at the bottom.

Globally, the iPhone still holds a 50 percent share of AdMob traffic. Symbian continues to drop despite carrying a rather large global market share in smartphone sales, and it's possible that Symbian^3 may reverse that trend later this year. Android also rose globally, though not as sharply as in the US, but still passed Symbian. RIM, webOS, and WinMo hover with a just a few points each at the bottom.

AdMob uses ad requests for ads from its network as its primary metric. Since these requests come from both mobile websites as well as apps that use AdMob ads, it's important to consider what AdMob data shows. Unlike traditional market share measured in units sold, AdMob's data could best be characterized as usage data; that is, AdMob's statistics show that platforms like iPhone OS or Android are used more often than others online, far more often than their relative market share by sales might suggest.

A point to consider in AdMob's data, though, is how smartphone platforms may spread outside of the smartphone category and into the MID category. The iPhone OS has seen significant success by powering both the iPhone and the iPod touch. AdMob notes that 93 percent of MID traffic comes from the iPod touch alone. Since the iPhone represents half of the smartphone traffic, and almost all of the MID traffic, the iPhone OS is responsible for 40 percent of all the traffic on AdMob's network.

For further corroboration, data from our own visitor logs for the last month shows that the iPhone OS accounts for two-thirds of our mobile traffic. Android users are hitting up Ars a little over a quarter of the time, while BlackBerry users are visiting every so often. WinMo, webOS, Symbian, and others are barely a blip on the radar.

The iPad represents yet another opportunity for Apple to grow the iPhone OS platform in the MID category, and early hype suggests that opportunity is a large one. Some manufacturers are adapting Android for tablet-like devices, and it already powers the Nook e-reader. WinMo and RIM won't likely have similar platform expansion anytime soon, and given Palm's dire situation, webOS won't likely see that as an option either. Nokia seems to be positioning MeeGo for MIDs and Symbian for phones, so it's difficult to predict how that strategy will play out.

73 Reader Comments

Not everybody uses AdMob for their ads. Thus AdMob - which is owned by Google - will skew data.

Ars' own visitor log data tells an entirely new story - about how dominant the iPhone platform is.

The iPhone Platform (which includes the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad) will only grow larger once the iPad is released. The iPad has ZERO significant competition. It creates its own market - which spans multiple others. It kills the eBook reader market and will take a significant cut of the Netbook market. The iPad will help POWER the iPhone platform to continued dominance for the foreseeable future.

The iPad is a joke. It is one of the most uninnovative products that Apple has ever created, and yet people act like it will revolutionalize the market. Any marginalization of the netbook or e-reader will be done far more by products like the HP Slate, than the lazy crapitude that the iPad represents.

I am a fairly happy iPhone 3GS owner that hopes that Apple gets off of its duff and starts producing revolutionary products again.

Whats interesting to me is the disparity between US and global markets. It's my understanding that in many overseas countries, carrier locking is greatly reduced (or nonexistent) and as such the iphone is more widely available. Here in the US however, it seems (IMHO) that the iphone is likely maxed out until they expand to other carriers. Whether or not Apple cares is a different story, and probably involves considerations well beyond my understanding.

Not everybody uses AdMob for their ads. Thus AdMob - which is owned by Google - will skew data.

Ars' own visitor log data tells an entirely new story - about how dominant the iPhone platform is.

The iPhone Platform (which includes the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad) will only grow larger once the iPad is released. The iPad has ZERO significant competition. It creates its own market - which spans multiple others. It kills the eBook reader market and will take a significant cut of the Netbook market. The iPad will help POWER the iPhone platform to continued dominance for the foreseeable future.

put down the crack pipe.

most mobile ads are done by admob so it's not skew data. im really shocked by how fast android took off, by the end of the year its going to be the flag ship os off 3/4 of the big us carriers.

To me, the big news here is Androids giant leap in traffic share. Given the giant leap, I can only surmise that next time around it will have exceeded the iPhone by a fair percentage.

This is not entirely surprising. It only took a worthwhile competitor to the iPhone to put an end to it's unfettered growth. As more and more competitors with Android phones enter the market, and the platform matures, the situation will only deteriorate for Apple.

Before you flip out and think that the data's skewed.. if there's anyone that should be upset it's RIM, because AdMob is primarily measuring browsers which have Javascript enabled..something that is disabled by default with most RIM products.

Our site mirrors Ars's results pretty closely. I think Android climbed to about 28-30 this past month, but regardless, it's nearly doubled in the last 6 months.

As for the future, if Apple doesn't open up to other carriers or if it doesn't try to match the innovation of Android, it's going to see its share dip quite a bit this next year.

Not everybody uses AdMob for their ads. Thus AdMob - which is owned by Google - will skew data.

Ars' own visitor log data tells an entirely new story - about how dominant the iPhone platform is.

The iPhone Platform (which includes the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad) will only grow larger once the iPad is released. The iPad has ZERO significant competition. It creates its own market - which spans multiple others. It kills the eBook reader market and will take a significant cut of the Netbook market. The iPad will help POWER the iPhone platform to continued dominance for the foreseeable future.

BS.

Admob data is not skewed. Admob aggregate by OS, for smartphones only, and therefor exclude iPod Touch and the like while Ars includes all internet capable devices.You really should read the text between the graphs.

If I browse to Arstechnica using Opera Mini does it know that I am using Android?

If admob is using their adverts as evidence then surely any time someone uses a free app supported by their adverts that counts towards their statistics. This doesn't sound like a very reliable source for web usage.

To me, the big news here is Androids giant leap in traffic share. Given the giant leap, I can only surmise that next time around it will have exceeded the iPhone by a fair percentage.

This is not entirely surprising. It only took a worthwhile competitor to the iPhone to put an end to it's unfettered growth. As more and more competitors with Android phones enter the market, and the platform matures, the situation will only deteriorate for Apple.

If I browse to Arstechnica using Opera Mini does it know that I am using Android?

Yes.

Quote:

If admob is using their adverts as evidence then surely any time someone uses a free app supported by their adverts that counts towards their statistics. This doesn't sound like a very reliable source for web usage.

It's one way to get an idea of how platform is used, but I agree it's not the best way. That's why we compare it with NetApplications and Ars data.

On my WM6.5 device I have used both an iphone and g1 user agent many times to force mobile versions of sites to show up by default. With the latest OS image and browser I installed, I finally figured out how to report myself as WM and opera and have ars show their mobile site by default.

The iPad is a joke. It is one of the most uninnovative products that Apple has ever created, and yet people act like it will revolutionalize the market. Any marginalization of the netbook or e-reader will be done far more by products like the HP Slate, than the lazy crapitude that the iPad represents.

Nah - the slate is 3 times more expensive, not really available yet, thicker and uglier, worse battery life. So ... Apple win this round.

If you wanna compete with the iPad you have to make it as cheap, or cheaper. So it really has no competition ATM.

Nah - the slate is 3 times more expensive, not really available yet, thicker and uglier, worse battery life. So ... Apple win this round.

If you wanna compete with the iPad you have to make it as cheap, or cheaper. So it really has no competition ATM.

Yeah, let's compare the iPad to non-existent products so we can belittle Apple, so we can make money on the shorts on their stock So far it's not going well though, the shorts are losing money left and right. Especially since the iPad is said to already have sold a million before its even in stores and some analysts upgraded the stock target price to as much as $300. BTW, a million people can't all be fanboys... can they?

Based on that data, it's about time for an "Android" tab under "Open Source" on Ars Technica. Your traffic of course will be skewed towards iPhone OS if you are dedicating a section to it. People with Android phones will look elsewhere for their info on Android Based on those trends in the first graph, it's safe to say Android has already passed the iPhone in the US for web traffic - you guys need to get with the program. :-)

I find it quite shocking how large share Android has gained. I don't really understand how it is possible. I thought sales number and total user base typically shows that there are far more iPhone than Android phones even in the US. I thougth it was almost like 8 to 1 or something. Can anyone explain why Android is so high on internet traffic?

Are Android users surfing insanely much compared to the rest?

I wonder if Apple's strategy can work in the long run against Android. There will be so many more Android phones to chose from and people don't want to own what everybody else has. With each iPhone looking the same that becomes a problem at high market share.

I think Apple has to consider licensing iPhone OS or making more phone models. It doesn't make sense for them in the desktop space because it would be so easy for people to undercut them on price. But I think they are far more competitive in the mobile phone space. They could set minimum standards for hardware on phones and charge enough to pay for development costs of the OS.

I find it quite shocking how large share Android has gained. I don't really understand how it is possible. I thought sales number and total user base typically shows that there are far more iPhone than Android phones even in the US. I thougth it was almost like 8 to 1 or something. Can anyone explain why Android is so high on internet traffic?

iirc, this mostly measures ad access. That is, what kinds of platforms requests ads from admob.

Not everybody uses AdMob for their ads. Thus AdMob - which is owned by Google - will skew data.

Ars' own visitor log data tells an entirely new story - about how dominant the iPhone platform is.

The iPhone Platform (which includes the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad) will only grow larger once the iPad is released. The iPad has ZERO significant competition. It creates its own market - which spans multiple others. It kills the eBook reader market and will take a significant cut of the Netbook market. The iPad will help POWER the iPhone platform to continued dominance for the foreseeable future.

Using Ars data to corroborate general trends is idiotic.Ars is fabulously over-represented in the Apple sphere, as you can tell by their PC marketshare distribution (by PC I mean personal computer, being a computer which is personal and runs typically Linux, OSX or Windows). OSX represents a vast share of the PC OS, and Safari when it comes to browsers, which is not representative of the general population.The iPhone having a massive Ars mobile marketshare is no surprise either, but shouldn't be used to illustrate any kind of wider trend.

The lack of growth for WebOS is really quite disappointing. I happen to own a Palm Pre and having looked at the Android and the iPhone, WebOS is light years better than either. (Although hampered by weak hardware initially. The Plus version is a significant improvement)

Sadly, the fact that Palm wasn't able to launch on Verizon plus an utterly inept early marketing campaign combined with Google basically buying out a massive chunk of "word of mouth" buzz (via giving handsets and money away to reviewers) has squashed Palm's chances of huge success.

It should also be noted that there is at least one place where the Pre is doing VERY well, and that's Germany. Simply because the Pre is the ONLY unlocked GSM smartphone available for that entire market.

I do think that they will survive, as they are supported by Elevations Partners (U2's billions) and can be propped up long enough to turn a profit. Especially now that they are on Verizon and are going to launch on AT&T in just a month or so. So while they probably won't set the market on fire, I imagine they will slip into a solid third place behind iPhone and Android over the next year.

In the meantime, check out the pre or Pre Plus. Trust me, WebOS is WAY better than Android.

The iPad is a joke. It is one of the most uninnovative products that Apple has ever created, and yet people act like it will revolutionalize the market

mbfhdhpzvq wrote:

The iPad is not innovative. It's a large iPod Touch. Don't kid yourself.

and then people on the generally similar side of the fence can say this:-

Shudder wrote:

As for the future, if Apple doesn't open up to other carriers or if it doesn't try to match the innovation of Android, it's going to see its share dip quite a bit this next year.

---------->>

0megaparticle wrote:

Any marginalization of the netbook or e-reader will be done far more by products like the HP Slate, than the lazy crapitude that the iPad represents.

The irony of this statement is that so many people anticipated that the price of the iPad was going to be ~ $1,000.00. The same people expressed that they definitely wouldn't be paying that much for such a device. I'm pretty sure that if the iPad'd price was around ~ $1,000.00 then that's the direction that your argument would take as well.

The lack of growth for WebOS is really quite disappointing. I happen to own a Palm Pre and having looked at the Android and the iPhone, WebOS is light years better than either. (Although hampered by weak hardware initially. The Plus version is a significant improvement)

In the meantime, check out the pre or Pre Plus. Trust me, WebOS is WAY better than Android.

WebOS is pretty slick, but I don't know about WAY better. My experience is limited to what the GUI has to offer. I really like the gestures and the overall aesthetic, but there's nothing there for me that would lure me away from my Droid. Cards for switching between apps is cool, but I find myself wanting to hide the cards (can this be done?) or simply closing all of them when I'm done with the phone. I don't know if that's an artifact of becoming accustomed to Android or not or just me.

Regardless, the world of cell phones is definitely better off with WebOS in it than not.

What you should read in those statistics is the relative share of OS people use to reach Admob's servers. No more and no less. If you use your phone's browser to read non-mobile pages or mobile pages without ads from Admob, then it is not counted. If you use a proxy, like the one of Opera, then you are not counted. If you use apps that spams you with ads from Admob, then you are counted as much as you are spammed. You should not read more than that in those statistics. It's actually very far from actual mobile OS market share. The actual fact is that Symbian is by far the most used smartphone OS. The iPhone is not so much important as those statistics would suggest.

Symbian will continue to lead the pack for the years to come. RIM will continue to attract business users.Android is going to take more and more importance in the mobile space. MeeGo is just starting but will grow faster and faster on high end phones. Web OS and Window mobile will have a hard time to catch up some market share.The iPhone OS will always remain an also ran OS. It's never going to sell in big volumes because it's tied to Apple hardware. Even if that was the best OS around, they can't hide the fact that the hardware it runs on is inferior and more expensive than the competitors. The press will continue to praise anything that comes from Cupertino, Apple will continue to fund heavy marketing campaigns, but their hardware will continue to lag behind.

The iPad is a joke. It is one of the most uninnovative products that Apple has ever created, and yet people act like it will revolutionalize the market.

Revolutionalize ??? Spell check is your friend. Use it.

Here is a clue: A product does not have to be revolutionary to revolutionize a market. This is especially true when it's a market dominated by Microsoft. In this case, it just needs to work, something that Microsoft does not think about when making products. The fact that Apple is going to take this market from Microsoft just like it did with the smart phone is more of a testament to the shit products Microsoft makes.

The iPad is a joke. It is one of the most uninnovative products that Apple has ever created, and yet people act like it will revolutionalize the market

mbfhdhpzvq wrote:

The iPad is not innovative. It's a large iPod Touch. Don't kid yourself.

and then people on the generally similar side of the fence can say this:-

Shudder wrote:

As for the future, if Apple doesn't open up to other carriers or if it doesn't try to match the innovation of Android, it's going to see its share dip quite a bit this next year.

---------->>

0megaparticle wrote:

Any marginalization of the netbook or e-reader will be done far more by products like the HP Slate, than the lazy crapitude that the iPad represents.

The irony of this statement is that so many people anticipated that the price of the iPad was going to be ~ $1,000.00. The same people expressed that they definitely wouldn't be paying that much for such a device. I'm pretty sure that if the iPad'd price was around ~ $1,000.00 then that's the direction that your argument would take as well.

People also thought it would have the capabilities of Mac OS X and run a full operating system. At $500 and running the iPod's OS, it's not much better. This device is primary useful as an e-reader (although favoring magazines over books due to the display), but is being touted as a laptop, although you can't consider it a laptop either since you need to often plug it into another computer for syncing.

The iPad will surely do good as an e-reader regardless due to the Apple name, but really should come down in price more for it's limited capabilities.